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Postdoctoral Fellow, Pandemics

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and the Department of Global Health within the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington are recruiting to fill one full-time year-long postdoctoral fellow appointment.

About IHME

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) is an independent research center at the University of Washington. Its mission is to monitor global health conditions and health systems, as well as to evaluate interventions, initiatives, and reforms. It uses cutting-edge techniques to tackle some of the most difficult and most critical questions in global health and find answers that will become the foundation for better policies and, ultimately, better health.

Scope of Fellowship

The incumbent will devise and apply innovative methods in in infectious disease modelling to produce high resolution geographic estimates of index case potential and baseline outputs for future pandemic potential estimation for five key pathogen groups: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the Henipaviruses (specifically Nipah and Hendra virus), Rift Valley Fever, Monkeypox, and Avian Influenza. The individual will will identify and define areas at-risk of emerging zoonotic infectious diseases across many of the least prepared countries in the world and present resources so that organizations can begin to quantify and subsequently mitigate this potential.

The incumbent must develop a command of the methods developed and deployed, and the rationale for them. In this case, the methods include species-distribution and infectious disease modelling, to demonstrate spatial variation in occurrence data; as well as exploring the spatial-temporal relationship between occurrence data and pandemic potential.

Postdoctoral Fellows play a critical role in ongoing research projects that apply analytical approaches and quantitative methods to impact evaluations, health economics, Global Burden of Disease, and other projects within the health metrics field. Duties of each fellow are tailored to create a research experience that builds upon the core proficiencies from their doctoral training.

Fellows work within teams to drive research forward from inception to publication while acquiring analytical skills and exploring new areas of investigation. Along with research opportunities, IHME provides training workshops to broaden fellows’ experience in effective writing for publication, grants, and statistical software programs.

The fellowship program also encourages fellows to engage in meaningful dialogue with the academic and policy communities by presenting research findings at global health conferences and participating in key meetings. This program focuses on defining research and professional development goals for future positions in academia, national health agencies, international organizations, and foundations.

Salary and benefits are commensurate with experience. This is a one-year appointment renewed annually following a performance review.

Application Process

Applicants should submit a curriculum vitae, a brief statement (500-word limit) outlining research interests and two letters of recommendation.